NOTES FROM THE FIELD:

Project Changes

Caregiver’s

Outlook


Halima Abdi is one of hundreds of social workers who make weekly visits to overburdened caregivers of children orphaned by AIDS as part of the AED Speak for the Child project, which serves approximately 9,000 children in Kenya’s Western and Nyanza Provinces.

She provides them with the services and support they need to meet the children’s emotional, educational, nutritional, and health needs.

Abdi is very proud of her work and writes about one family in the town of Vihiga, who underwent a complete transformation as a result of the program.

Speak For The Child is funded by US Agency for International Development and the Children's Investment Fund Foundation.

Rodah Matindo is a widow with six children, three of whom are in the AED Speak for the Child program: Rose Aseyo,Richard Magomere, and Leah Asagi. When I first met Rhodah, she was a miserable woman who had given up on life. She was lonely.

The compound was dirty, and the children were dirty. She had no crop on her small piece of land, no toilet, and no dish rack. The children were malnourished and not enrolled in preschool. Rhodah never used to stay at home and went around to neighbors’ houses begging for food and money.

With frequent visits from us, Rhodah changed her knowledge, attitude, and beliefs about so many things. She and her children have benefited from blankets and nets, seeds and fertilizer, uniforms, school fees, medication, and UNIMIX (UNIMIX is a mix of grains fortified with vitamins that cooks up into a healthy porridge).

Rhodah has increased [the amount of ] food in her household. She no longer begs, and [she] does part-time work, such as weeding fields. Her children are now healthy and happy because AED has given her information about health, nutrition and child development. With all the information she received from Speak for the Child she has constructed a toilet and a dish rack.

Rhodah is happy once again and appreciates so much the work of AED and the Speak for the Child project. She says now she is able to support and care for her children. “Thanks so much and may God bless the work of AED’s Speak for the Child project.”

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